Making effort to save addicts

Friday

Aug 8, 2014 at 6:00 AM

By Clive McFarlane

Drug addiction is more than just a disease.

It is a parasite that feeds on the addict's family members, friends and community. As such, intervention efforts that prevent or treat addiction are made not just to save addicts, but also their family, friends and community.

The staff at AIDS Project Worcester, 40 percent of whom are recovering from drug/alcohol addiction and 16 percent of whom are living with HIV, knows this too well.

They also know that overdose is the leading cause of death among drug users. And that is why in 2011 the agency jumped at the chance to join a state Department of Public Health overdose prevention pilot program.

The Opioid Overdose Prevention Program, as the initiative was called, authorized the distribution of naloxone (Narcan), a drug used to reverse heroin overdose, to trained individuals. These trainers would then train other individuals (responders) to administer the drug to overdose victims.

In the case of AIDS Project Worcester, the responder was anyone who would likely witness a drug overdose — parents or other family members, social service providers, as well as other drug users. Since 2011, the agency has trained more than 1,500 individuals to administer Narcan, and has been successful in reversing the overdoses of more than 200 individuals, according to Jesse Pack, director of prevention and screening at AIDS Project Worcester.

A number of fire and police departments have also signed up with the state's program. One of the most successful has been the Quincy Police Department. In an online article, Detective Lt. Patrick Glynn, who oversees the overdose prevention program, said that between October 2010 and early December 2013, the Quincy police reversed 202 opiate overdoses, and that in the first 18 months the program reduced the city's overdose death rate by 66 percent.

The successes of the program, according to Detective Lt. Glynn, led the Quincy Police Department to require all 200 officers to carry Narcan.

"We realized we could not arrest ourselves out of the situation," he said. "People need help."

With more than nine people dying from drug overdoses within a week in Worcester, city officials declared that we were in the midst of a public health emergency. These officials, however, seemed to signal their lack of capacity to respond meaningfully when they convened a press conference to essentially tell heroin addicts that their best foot forward is to stay away from drugs.

This is about to change.

The Worcester Police Department has trained officers to use Narcan, and Chief Gary Gemme hopes to have it available in cruisers within the next two weeks.

This move by the WPD, according Derek S. Brindisi, city director of Public Health, was made possible by a health emergency order signed earlier this year by Gov. Deval Patrick, which authorized the DPH to make Narcan available to all first responders.

Dr. Brindisi believes that while prevention remains a top priority in addressing drug use and addiction, there is a moral obligation to help the addict become whole again.

It is a leap of faith, no doubt, to believe in individuals who because of their addictions would rather act to kill than to save themselves. But, according to Mr. Pack, every addict who recovers improves the quality of life of his family, friends and community.

"Narcan has been a dirty word," Mr. Pack said.

"People are afraid to be in support of it, because they believe it enables drug addiction. But it saves lives. It gives people a chance of another day, and another opportunity to evaluate where their life is going and to seek treatment."